An intimate, funny, brutally honest account of the author’s brush with breast cancer.

“I want to be brave. I want to be big. I want to be gracious and cool. I want to be the Audrey Hepburn of cancer…”

Gail Konop Baker was a runner, yoga practitioner, and lifelong subscriber to Prevention magazine. As her forty-sixth birthday approached, she looked forward to a time when she could at last take a deep breath, with one child heading off to college and the other two busy with their lives. She finally felt as if she was getting her life back.

Then, right before Valentine’s Day 2006, she heard the words that would forever change her: Just to be safe, I think we should biopsy.

It was the beginning of her year-long struggle with breast cancer and its fallout—one that would upstage any midlife crisis she’d fretted was waiting in the wings. “I want to feel bad about my neck. I do,” she writes. “But I feel bad I may not ever get to feel bad about my neck.” Gail was suddenly faced with the truth that awaits us all—this was her life, and she would do anything to hold on to it. As a doctor’s wife, she knew more than she should about her diagnosis and treatment. As a mother, she found unbearable the idea of not being there for the next birthday, next graduation, next anything. And as a woman who’d put her dreams on hold for years, she was determined to make every minute count.

But Cancer Is a Bitch is about much more than the “C” word; it's about the outrageous challenges of marriage, the joys and unpredictability of motherhood, about figuring out what it is you want to do with your life, about wanting to live now.

Funny, raw, and moving, this story will resonate with every mother and wife, and with anyone who has been affected by cancer. It is one woman’s unforgettable, beautifully told account of juggling midlife and motherhood with a rogue boob—and, ultimately, triumphing.
 

Publishers Weekly
"Gail Konop Baker is “both humorous…and compassionate.”

Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants
“Don't let the ‘C’ word scare you—Cancer Is a Bitch is smart, funny, hopeful, and as much about life, families, and self-discovery as the cancer that prompts it. I loved this book: Read it!”

Lolly Winston, author of Good Grief and Happiness Sold Separately
“Gail Konop Baker is a knock-out writer who cracks me up one minute then brings me to tears the next. Her beautiful, funny, feisty, poignant memoir isn’t just an inspiration for cancer patients and their families—but for all of us. There is so much wisdom between these pages, yet the story is told without an ounce of self pity or a trace of triteness. In the end, this tale is a testament to how precarious and priceless life is, and how each of us needs to live it to the fullest, starting right now.”

Elisabeth Squires, author of bOObs: A Guide to Your Girls
“Cancer Is a Bitch smartly illustrates how breast cancer impacts our roles as wives, mothers, lovers, and friends. Gail Konop Baker’s candid recollections are also filled with extraordinary hope and humor. Her ‘mammoir’ is witty, wise, and wonderfully written.”

Jon Clinch, author of Finn
“Gail Konop Baker has achieved the near-impossible: She’s given us real life—funny, sad, intimate, heartbreaking, and hopeful—on the page. To write that way is her gift, and it’s a gift to readers, too.”

Kirkus Reviews
“You-are-there account of the author’s diagnosis, surgery and much more.”

Booklist
“Wrenchingly authentic…down-to-earth account.”

Library Journal
“Cutting, crafty, and clearly a woman on a mission, Baker takes us along as her life turns upside down in so many ways. No graphic treatment specifics here, but an honest (and very funny, for the most part) approach to breast cancer. For all patient health collections.”

Bookpage, October 2008
“Baker courageously places her screwed-up childhood, imperfect marriage, motherhood and sanity under the microscope…Her guts, and affection for the occasional joke, toke and profanity, make her a deeply consoling companion on a frightening journey.”

Miami Herald, October 2008
“unflinchingly intimate…packed with razor-sharp humor…the antithesis of a victim's tale …Cancer is a Bitch offers a humorous yet frighteningly relevant glimpse into an experience too many women will face.”
 

Gail Konop Baker is an award-winning writer and essayist. A former columnist at Literary Mama, is a regular contributor to thedebutanteball.com. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin, with her family. Visit her Web site at www.gailkonopbaker.com.

Imprint: Da Capo Lifelong Books
Distributor: Perseus Books Group
Publication Date: 09-22-2008
Pages: 272
Measurements: 8.25in X 5.50in